Brian Sawyer

Updates from April, 2005 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

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  Brian Sawyer 4:08 pm on April 16, 2005 Permalink | Reply  

  On Deck: Brooklyn Noir 2 

  I just received an advance copy of Brooklyn Noir 2 in the mail and can’t wait to crack it open. As it happens, and purely by coincidence, I’m just about to finish another collection of genre fiction (McSweeney’s Enchanted Chamber of Astonishing Stories), so the timing of this book’s arrival couldn’t be better. I don’t have much time to read lately (as I’ve mentioned more than once recently; it’s a bit of a sore issue for me), so this book will have to bump the rest of the books in my ever-growing list to take its place at the top of the queue.

  Why the special attention? Frequent readers of this site (if, indeed, there is such a category of people) may remember that I quite enjoyed the first book in this series. I guess I’m not alone, because the press release that accompanied Brooklyn Noir 2 referred to “the stunning success of the summer ’04 award-winning bestseller Brooklyn Noir,” which has launched not just a sequel, but also “a groundbreaking series of original noir anothologies.” Forthcoming Akashic Noir titles include Manhattan Noir, Baltimore Noir, Los Angelos Noir, D.C. Noir, Dublin Noir, Chicago Noir, and San Francisco Noir.

  I don’t know that I’ll ever have the time to read every book in such an ambitious list of titles, but for now, I’ll content myself with Brooklyn Noir 2: The Classics. While the first installment featured original stories by contemporary writers only, the second installment “offers short stories by the classic authors who blazed the path for the success of the first volume.” That doesn’t mean you won’t find any contemporary writers in the mix, but there are indeed some serious noir heavyweights on the contributor list, which includes H.P. Lovecraft, Lawrence Block, Donald Westlake, Pete Hamill, Jonathan Lethem, Colson Whitehead, Carolyn Wheat, Thomas Wolfe, Hubert Selby, Jr., Stanley Ellin, Gilbert Sorrentino, Maggie Estep, and more.

  I’ll of course post my complete review when I finish, though I can’t make any promises for how soon that might be.

  Joshua Salik is discussing. Toggle Comments

   
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    Joshua Salik 3:17 am on May 17, 2005 Permalink | Reply

    Our client, Bookins Inc. of New York, NY has just developed a new
    website for individuals and institutions who have old books which they would like to trade for new ones. The site is located at:
    http://www.bookins.com
    and the service is free.
    You are welcome to join.
    Sincerely,
    Joshua Salik
    Salik Games
    http://salikgames.home.att.net
    “The empty half of the glass is always at the top”

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  Brian Sawyer 3:07 pm on April 13, 2005 Permalink | Reply  

  Disquieting Modern Trends: William Safire Edition 

  For anal-retentive curmudgeons and editorial blowhards only. If the only thing you liked more than reading Eats, Shoots & Leaves was finding fault with Lynne Truss’s own usage in the book, you’ll have a grand time picking apart Yankee Pot Roast’s Disquieting Modern Trends: William Safire Edition:

  There is nothing we love more on this green Earth than traveling the lay of our great nation and listening to the stupid stuff that people say. We consider ourselves pleasant conversationalists and witty raconteurs, and there is no more lovely an afternoon than one spent chitchatting with our adoring public. But we get maybe one paragraph into one of our really good stories (like, for example, the one about how we wound up eating Cheerios out of Kathy Lee Gifford’s brassiere cups) and–some knucklehead interrupts us. And when they do so, they inevitably say something that utterly annoys us.It should be noted that we are rarely upset by the substance of what people say. We are tolerant men, men willing to consider various points of view on the topics of the day. But what we cannot fathom, accept, or endorse are people who say stupid things stupidly. We’re not too hot on people who say smart things stupidly either. And don’t even get us started on people who say anything at all that contains the word “dialogue” used as a verb.

  Let us dialogue with you right now: American tongues are a battlefield, and we aim to bring out the heavy-gauge shotguns to defend all that is normal, plain, and unpretentious. William Safire we may not be, but here is our list of the most irritating, illogical, and cumbersome word abuses and usages out there right now.

  (via Maud)

   
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  Brian Sawyer 5:20 pm on April 10, 2005 Permalink | Reply  

  The Great Gatsby Turns 80 

  A very happy birthday indeed to The Great Gatsby, still great after all these years.

  So, three cheers for Fitzgerald, for he’s a jolly-good fellow, and all that, but don’t forget to save the second slice of cake for Maxwell Perkins, without whose editorial hand the book would have likely been called Trimalchio in West Egg, Gold-Hatted Gatsby, or The High-Bouncing Lover.